Hey guys,I saw an old thread where Jeff Varasano converted an original Patsy's doughball into his famous poolish. I was thinking of doing the same thing by going to my favorite pizzeria and purchasing a doughball and converting it into a battery poolish. The only problem is I would have no idea how to start. It would seem simple since the dough and poolish have the same ingredients of flour and water. I'm assuming it would require adding water to the doughball to break it down. Has anybody done this before? I tried google and nothing came up. Any tips would be greatly appreciated.

Unless the pizzeria in question is telling you that they use a natural culture, it's almost a certainty that they are using baker's yeast (ADY, IDY, or CY), so it is very likely the culture you end up with will be one you could create simply with yeast from the grocery store.

There is no "right way" to create a culture from a dough ball. You are just using the dough to inoculate a flour-water mixture.

I would let the dough ball rise up until it starts to fall (keep it covered so it doesn't dry out - mist it if you need to). That should give you peak yeast activity. I would then mix equal parts by weight of flour and water - maybe 150g of each, cut up 50g or so of the dough into little pieces and mix it in until everything is relatively smooth. Feed it equal parts of flour and water every couple days.

Logged

"We make great pizza, with sourdough when we can, commercial yeast when we must, but always great pizza."Craig's Neapolitan Garage

After the above threads were posted, another member attempted to take a naturally leavened dough that Pete Taylor gave him and to try to culture his dough with Pete's dough. Unfortunately, I could not find the thread where his efforts were reported.

After the above threads were posted, another member attempted to take a naturally leavened dough that Pete Taylor gave him and to try to culture his dough with Pete's dough. Unfortunately, I could not find the thread where his efforts were reported.

I actually thought that it was Mark who has started the thread, and I did look through all of his posts, but I somehow missed the thread he started on the subject. I may need to recalibrate my eyeballs. Not to be deterred, I planned to look at Mark's posts again when I returned from shopping this afternoon, but you beat me to it.

Really it doesn't matter, because the leavening ability of what ever you grow could be easily different than what he had, or what I have and so on. Your either going to want to start with a known starter/poolish or just wing it until your satisfied.

Well I just broke down and purchased the Ischia and camaldoli italian starters from sourdo.com so I will try those instead. So now I need to know how much to use since it will be my first time using a culture.

With sourdough ("SD") there are really no recipes - only guidelines. There are so many variables, it is likely you will need to make several (probably many) rounds of changes and adjustments regardless of where you start. It will require experimentation to figure out what works for you. Here is how I do it: http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,20479.0.html

Some of the variables that you will have to balance with your starter%:

Thanks Pete! So one final question.....I spoke with Amberlie at sourdo.com about using additional yeast as Jeff shows in his recipe but she said absolutely not! She said that would defeat the purpose of using a culture. Although Jeff shows yeast as an "optional" ingredient he does use it himself in his recipe. It does seem contradictory to use yeast and a culture in the same recipe. What do you guys think about this?

Well I just broke down and purchased the Ischia and camaldoli italian starters from sourdo.com so I will try those instead. So now I need to know how much to use since it will be my first time using a culture.

Oh, it also depends on the proofing and fermentation schedule/ temperature; and the type of flour you are using. What temps do you plan on baking at? Gas or electric? Stone, steel or screen?

Thanks Pete! So one final question.....I spoke with Amberlie at sourdo.com about using additional yeast as Jeff shows in his recipe but she said absolutely not! She said that would defeat the purpose of using a culture. Although Pete shows yeast as an "optional" ingredient he does use it himself in his recipe. It does seem contradictory to use yeast and a culture in the same recipe. What do you guys think about this?

Thanks Pete! So one final question.....I spoke with Amberlie at sourdo.com about using additional yeast as Jeff shows in his recipe but she said absolutely not! She said that would defeat the purpose of using a culture. Although Jeff shows yeast as an "optional" ingredient he does use it himself in his recipe. It does seem contradictory to use yeast and a culture in the same recipe. What do you guys think about this?

AJ72,

At one time, Jeff did use a combination of natural starter and commercial yeast in order to get more "puff" out of the dough and finished crust, as I mentioned in the second paragraph of Reply 162 at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,6758.msg94261/topicseen.html#msg94261. In that same post, I also discussed my experience in using a combination of natural starter and commercial yeast. I agree with Craig that you don't need to use any commercial yeast with the natural leavening if it is in good and active condition.

In a nutshell guys what I'm trying to ask is......If I was to use the Lehmann NY Style Dough recipe at 65% hydration using cold fermentation and replacing IDY with starter, How much starter would you recommend with respect to 100% flour weight? I would would be doing a 2 day cold ferment with a 2 hour warm rise before baking. My goal is to produce a NY Style street pie without commercial yeast. Thanks!

Ok so if Marco recommends 1-5% vs with respect to water then what would that translate to vs weight of flour? Thanks.

AJ72,

I wouldn't get hung up on that number. The reason why Marco recommended 1-5% starter with respect to the weight of water is because that is the way things are done in Naples. When they make the dough in Naples, they start with the water and then select the amounts of the other ingredients, including the starter (or commercial yeast, if used), with respect to the amount of water. In the U.S., we measure everything in a dough recipe, other than the flour, as a percent of the weight of the flour, not the water. Once you decide on which recipe to use, you can convert the 1-5% starter to a percent of the flour.

To give you a simple example, if you look at Craig's dough recipe at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,20477.msg202047.html#msg202047, he uses the Ischia culture at 1.3% of the formula flour (the U.S. method). With 1300 grams of flour, the amount of Ischia culture he uses is 16.9 grams (1.3% of 1300 grams). The water in Craig's recipe comes to 62.5% of 1300 grams, or 812.5 grams. At 16.9 grams, the percent of the Ischia culture with respect to the formula water is 16.9/812.5 = 2.08%. So, his Ischia culture as a percent of the formula water falls within Marco's range.

In a nutshell guys what I'm trying to ask is......If I was to use the Lehmann NY Style Dough recipe at 65% hydration using cold fermentation and replacing IDY with starter, How much starter would you recommend with respect to 100% flour weight? I would would be doing a 2 day cold ferment with a 2 hour warm rise before baking. My goal is to produce a NY Style street pie without commercial yeast. Thanks!

AJ72,

You will not be able to use 1-5% natural culture with a cold fermentation application as you described. The 1-5% is for a dough that is to be fermented at room temperature, preferably at 64.4-68 degrees F (18-20 degrees C). You will need to use much more than 5% culture for a cold fermented dough. In experiments I conducted several years ago using a natural starter with the Lehmann NY style dough formulation, and where the dough was cold fermented (retarded) for 45 hours, I used 20% natural preferment (measured with respect to the formula flour). You can read the details as I reported them at the time at Reply 151 at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,576.msg11774.html#msg11774. In your case, you would have to modify the Lehmann formulation based on the amount of dough you want to make, the size of the pizza, and the thickness of the crust that you are after.